The Girl From Colony Six
by shortpeopleproblems
Summary: Alula wakes up after nearly forty years in cryosleep aboard the science/research vessel, The Maverick. The Maverick's science team is overjoyed, they have succeed where the major scientists have failed and have a working method of long-term suspended animation. As here memory returns, she realizes the grave danger they are all in.
1. Chapter 1

Hi! Wow... so here we are again, me having not posted in months...and feeling really bad about it. So here's something new for you guys that I'm writing with my friend alloutassaulthorizon, and I'm really excited about it. Please leave comments on what you guys think of this, and weather you think I should continue it. Ok I'll let you start reading now :) As always, ENJOY!

-8tickles

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Black. Dark. For how long, I didn't know. But the day I was revived, the darkness stopped, and being became harder. My mind was peacefully dark and then suddenly...there was something uncomfortable.

It was like I couldn't breathe anymore, but really, it was the opposite. I was tasting air for the first time. I sit up, my eyes fly open and my lungs begin to work, taking in deep, labored breaths. I'm blinded temporarily. Standing in front of me are three people, all dressed in the same…color I guess the word is? They were all wearing white. Where were these words coming from? I don't remember anything.

They are rejoicing, jumping up and down, screaming and cheering and hugging each other. One of them screams in a strange language. When he speaks, something in my ear vibrates. There is a short lag from when he says the words to when I hear them. Whatever is in my ear must be translating the words to my language, but what is my language? One of the ones with short hair shouts out with joy, "She's alive, we actually woke up the girl from the moon! I can't believe we did it!"

The space we were in was moderately sized, but very cluttered. The Plexiglass tube I was sitting in along with lots of machines and other things I couldn't identify took up most of the room. It stood at a slight angle, and appeared to be up against a wall. Fluorescent lights hung above me in increments. The floor was patterned like a checkerboard. How did I know terms like checkerboard? This was all very confusing.

I was soaking wet. Something blue dripped off of my hair. I raised a tentative hand and touched it. It was freezing cold. Only then did I realize that I was shivering. I wiped blue gook from my eyes and blinked. My chest and bikini area were covered by a piece of wrap-around silver fabric. It twined from my top all the way down my torso and down my right leg, ending plugged into an outlet near my ankle.

I tried to speak. "130987002593."

The three people stopped dead in their tracks and looked at me. The other one with short hair muttered, "Shit, we are such idiots. We forgot to get translating devices for ourselves!" They laughed for a minute before the first one with short hair and the one with really long hair raced off. That left me and the second one with short hair. He plopped down on a chair and cleared his throat.

"Um hi, I know you can understand me but I can't understand you yet so…my name's Carter. I work here as an intern. I'm sure you're very confused. We're in a science research ship and you're the first person to survive being in a frio chamber this long. The big guys been working on this for years, coming up with theories and big long equations that no one else understands. While they argued about how to do it and if it would even work and who would get the credit for it, we went ahead and just did it! Brought you down into the frio chamber, we call it the frito chamber behind their backs because we all think it's a stupid name but this is kind of a big deal for us, so umm… ya… Maybe we can talk some when uh… when you can talk." He sat there for a minute with an awkward look on his face. "Well, um... Fitch probably needs my help with something, so I guess I'll see you later then." With that he dashed off.

"Sorry about that," went my earpiece.

The long haired person came back into view. She tapped on something next to the glass that separated us, a keypad I assumed, and the glass began to rise. I took a few breaths.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a huge smile on her face. "Hang on, lets get that insulation gel off of you."

"2.1415926535879." I replied.

She unplugged the silver fabric from the socket near my foot and began to unwrap it, revealing an even tighter black fabric underneath it. "This is your translator," she told me, and pinned it at the edge of the fabric near my collarbone.

"Now, how do you feel?"

"Cold," I said. I tried to take a step and almost fell over. "Woah, who turned the gravity so high?"

She laughed. "It's earth gravity, silly moon girl! You'll get used to it."

I hoped I would. "Do you have anything I could change into?" I asked. "This isn't …" The word got stuck in my brain. "...warm." I finished.

"Of course," she said, "follow me."

Using her for support, I made it to the ladder out of the lab, but she practically had to carry me up it. She brought me through a doorway and pointed to a small, closet sized room on our left. "You might want to take a shower first," she said. "Get the rest of that insulation off."

I went inside. Using the walls to brace myself, I turned on the water. The water smelled metallic and… was that chlorine? I washed the blue gel off of my face and got as much of it as I could out of my hair in under a minute. I dried off and picked up the clothes that were left outside the shower. They seemed...soft I think the word is.

When I was done, the scientist woman came back.

"Better?" She asked.

"Much." I verified.

"Good, now I need to ask you a few questions to make sure you're alright. Are you feeling itchy anywhere?"

"No," I said after a second.

"Very good." She said. "Any pain in your back?"

"I don't believe so." I say.

"Perfect. Final question; does anything smell like strawberries?" She asked, completely serious-faced.

I tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a choked stutter. "You...you jest!" I managed to get out.

"No. Nothing here is a 'jest'." She replied, clearly unimpressed by my laughter. "If you can't smell anything then the insulation is unsafe to inhale long term and we've all got a serious problem."

"Yes, I smell strawberries."

"Alright..." she said, not sounding very convinced. "We'll be running some real tests on you soon to make sure everything checks out. Would you like one?" She held up a strawberry from across the room.

I nodded, and she underhanded it to me. The strawberry took a very high angle. Slumped against the wall I prepared myself to raise my hands to catch it off of the ceiling, but it curved downwards and hit me right in the face, then it landed on the floor.

She burst out laughing. "That's right, I forgot," she managed. "Moon gravity." She walked over to me with a large bowl full of strawberries. "Do me a favor and take this up to the cockpit, promised the flyboys I would give them some after we were done with them. It'll help you get used to the gravity too." She put the bowl in my hands but still held it. "Do you have it?" I nodded and she loosened her grip a little. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," I said, and she let go of the bowl.

"Cockpit's all the way that way," she said, pointing back in the direction of the lab. "Go around the railing, it's through the next door."

She didn't have to tell me twice, I didn't think I could handle that ladder if she wasn't there. Holding onto the bowl with both hands, I made it through the doorway leading to the lab and along the elevated walkway going around it leaning against the wall for support. I noticed Carter and one of the people in a white coat down there, so I assumed that he was Fitch.

I stood in the doorway to the cockpit. I saw two people with their backs turned to me, one was a large man sitting in a chair to my left and the other a smaller guy sitting in the one to my right, both of them tapping away at the holographic screens. Behind them was pure black space, and I took a few steps closer to see if we were orbiting anything.

"This must be the moon girl," said the one in the left chair without even turning around to face me.

"How could you…" I started.

"Cause you're the only one on this ship who isn't afraid of what will happen to them when they cross the red tape," he said. I looked at the doorway and noticed a faint red line running through it. I walked through and stood on the other side as quickly as I felt comfortable doing in this gravity. He chuckled. "What do you want?"

"I brought you… uhh…" I held the bowl out to them even though neither of them was looking.

The bigger one gestured to the smaller one. "Mark?"

The smaller one got up and came to me to take the bowl. He nodded to me and thanked me as he took it, then went back to his chair and put the bowl on the glass dashboard between them.

"Strawberries?" asked the bigger guy.

"Yes," I said, "strawberries."

"I'm Curtis, I'm the pilot," he said after taking a few. "That's Mark, he's my intern."

"Understudy, we've been over this before," said Mark. "And considering I've been on this thing three years…"

"It's intern," insisted Curtis. "Anyway if you need anything, come see me, just watch the tape next time. Thank Olga for the strawberries for me."

"Is there somewhere I… uh… I can sleep?" I asked.

He laughed. "Really? You just woke up after a few decades of napping and you want to go back to sleep?"

I didn't know how to respond. After a second of awkward silence, I asked again. "Is there?"

Curtis sighed. "Yeah, go all the way to the back and open up the hatch under the table, it'll take you to the cargo area. That's where you'll be sleeping."

I laughed. "You… you joke, right?"

"Nope," he said. "Just ask Carter."

"Or me," added Mark. "It's where the understudies sleep."

"But I saw beds," I protested.

"Yes, but they're the older people's beds," Curtis explained. "Like mine."

"What year were you born?" I asked.

"2347," he said.

"Ha! 2344, I'm older than you!" I said. "I would like a bed."

He turned around for the first time to look me over and for a second our eyes met. They were dark and stern looking, his brow was furrowed in a way that made him look aggravated, but his face as a whole gave the impression that he liked to joke around. His eyes didn't even make it halfway down my body before he turned back around and laughed to himself. "No, you're not older."

Mark burst out laughing. Flustered, I left for the back of the ship.

_I hate strawberries. _I thought grouchily.

Even though the ship wasn't incredibly long, it took me almost five minutes to get to the back while walking at the same speed I probably would have been walking on the moon while still using the wall for support. I opened up the little hatch under the table and slid through. I was glad I was short, because the ceiling for the cargo area couldn't have been more than 5 feet from the floor. I couldn't imagine how someone Carter's height even got in here. After going a ways through the cargo area, which ran almost halfway through the ship from what I could tell and held almost nothing but food, I found two makeshift beds that were across the center aisle from each other. I was tired and I didn't really care who's beds they were. I lay down in the one on the right and closed my eyes, submitting to the warmth of the blankets.

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This story is going to get so much better as it goes on! Next update will be in roughly 3 weeks...that is, unless I get at least 5 comments, then early update. See y'all next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Hi everyone! Not much to say other than that this is chapter two, I hope you like it, cuz I certainly do. As always, ENJOY!

-8tickles

P.S. We did not make it to the number of comments I wanted, so no name for you! Try harder next time. Comment, get your friends to comment, you family, you cousin, your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, your dog, your dog's cousin, anyone! XD

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(Carter's POV)

I stood at one of the lab tables with Fitch standing nearby, just watching me as I messed with the wiring on one of the translating devices. The circuit board had blown when Olga screamed into it out of excitement of our successful resurrection, so now I was replacing it. A final twist of a red wire and I'd be done. My fingers shook as I started to tighten it, speeding up as I went. I flicked it between my thumb and pointer finger when I screwed the whole thing up. I'd twisted too hard to the right. Sparks flew from the circuitry and a small fire started in it, singeing my fingers.

"Shit!" I pulled my hand back and shook my red, already blistering fingers.

Fitch rushed over. "Great job, you burned yourself."

"Yeah, you think?" I growled through gritted teeth.

He sighed. "Go get some bio cream, boy." He ordered.

He didn't have to tell me twice, so I turned and walked off. I had to walk all the way across to the other side of the ship to get to the intern quarters where all of my medical supplies were. I finally got to the small hold and opened the trapdoor. I slipped agilely inside like always. I turned around, used to the spacing in my small confines, but what I was not expecting was the mop of pink hair laying in my cot. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dark, but when they did, I had to do a double take. _I must be imagining things. _I thought. But sure enough, there was Alula, the moon girl, IN MY BED. What the heck?! She rolled a little in her sleep from her side to her back so that her face was showing, but one long pink lock stayed draped over her forehead. Her breaths were uneven, but I knew it was from her lungs adjusting to our high oxygen levels. Her complexion was scary pale, verging on translucent. Particularly in her exposed arm, her veins were prominent through her paper-thin skin. Her parted lips almost matched the color of her cotton candy pink hair to a t, only they were a tad bit darker. There wasn't a single flaw on her skin, from her furrowed brows to her strong jaw line. It struck me for the first time that Alula was beautiful, almost inhumanly so.

"Who am I kidding? She isn't fully human, only third generation human, you dope." I said out loud, but to no one in particular.

"She looks almost my age, maybe a bit younger." I said out loud again.

"Carter, you're crazy. Stop having a conversation with yourself, you nerd." I took a step back, preparing to turn around and go back upstairs when I knocked over a box of tools, flailed to catch it, missed, cringed then stood up straight and banged my head in the process.

"Ow! God you're such a genius, Carter." I muttered while rubbing my bumped head.

Just then, Alula bolted upright in my cot.

"STOP! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" She screeched while thrusting out one hand. Ripples emitted from her palm, and suddenly, I was frozen in place, unable to move a single joint or ligament on my own accord. As she turned those startling grey eyes on me, recognition dawned in them.

"Carter!" She wailed. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

She withdrew her hand and I could move again.

"Wha...What the hell was that?" I asked.

"I...don't really know. Is that normal?" She asked, clearly perplexed.

"Uhh...no." I stated. "Actually, I've never seen anything like that in my life before, and I work with here Fitch and Olga so I've seen some pretty weird stuff."

I reached out for her hand, and she sat up and crossed her legs in front of her, strange grey eyes alert. She slowly extended her hand to me, so I took it and looked at her fingers, but they seemed completely normal.

I began to pick up some of the tools that had fallen out of the toolbox. When I picked up the spectrometer, I noticed I was getting a reading, and it seemed to be emanating from her wrists.

"Interesting. Your electrical impulses are abnormal." I murmured. I absentmindedly pushed my glasses up higher on my nose as I watched the image on the screen, completely transfixed.

"You really have no idea what that is or where it came from?" I asked again.

She chewed on her lip, thinking deeply. "No. I haven't the slightest idea what it was, or even how I did it, I just sort of...did."

Our eyes locked for a moment, and I suddenly realized how close in proximity I was to her. Being this close made my face burn at the bizarre array of thoughts I'd had about her earlier. I let her hand drop and moved to stand.

"You...were sleeping in my bed. I...I should p-p-probably be going." I stumbled over my own words, and in the hurry to stand up, I hit my head on the ceiling. AGAIN. I looked back over my shoulder once, picked up a tube of bio cream and looked back a second time, but she was just sitting there, looking at me all funny.

"Are all humans this..." She gestured with her hands as if she were trying to think of the word. "...tripadecent? Sorry, I can't think of the word in English." She said.

"The word you're thinking of is awkward, and no, not all humans are like this, it's just me."

I climbed up the ladder and into the fresh air above. Boy was that a weird confrontation. I ran into Olga heading back to the lab.

"Let Fitch and the flyboys know food will be ready in a few minutes," she told me.

I headed towards the cockpit and called down to Fitch in the lab on the way over, then brought Mark and Curtis to the bar style table that was in the living quarters, near the beds. After that I went and got Alula.

The table wasn't actually as dull and metallic as the rest of the ship, it was one of the few things to have a polished wooden finish. Actually, it was the only thing on the ship I could think of, aside from where the beds of the people who weren't interns were, that was made of wood.

Generally we didn't all eat at the same time, we'd work until we needed something to eat or needed to rest, very rarely were these times lined up in any way. Today was different though, we'd pulled off something of a miracle waking up Alula and it was time to celebrate.

After Olga had set everything out on the table, she began talking. "I published the results, and it's official! We're the first people in history to successfully bring someone who's been in suspended animation for almost 38 years out! Well done, all around."

I recognized the expression on Fitch's face, or rather the lack of one. I'd been around him long enough to know what he was probably thinking: We shouldn't get too excited yet, she's hardly been awake a day and we haven't done any scans yet.

"And I can't stress enough," she continued, "how grateful all of us are that you would volunteer for something like this, Alula and so eagerly..."

"I did?" She asked.

Olga laughed and kept going. "I know you've been out of the loop for a while, so if there's any questions you have, feel free to ask anyone."

"A few, actually," she said. "What are we doing out here in the middle of space? Why aren't we in orbit or anything?"

Curtis sighed. "Orbit regulations have gotten a lot tighter in the past 20, 30 years… Surface property is pretty expensive too. If you can afford a ship, it's probably the best way to live, all things considered."

"Carter used a word earlier...what does 'awkward' mean?"

I laughed and flushed red with embarrassment.

"He did now, did he?" Olga asked. All eyes were on me, but everyone was smiling.

"I hit my head on the ceiling and Alula called me awkward in martian, so I corrected her." I elbowed her and she smiled back at me.

Curtis gave a nasal laugh, and in his trademarked, annoying, low and joking voice muttered, "Ah, young love."

Everyone at the table cracked up, except me and Alula. Even Fitch chuckled some. But I knew Fitch wasn't that kind of person, and thankfully, he saved me by changing the subject.

"So, Curtis, any news from the front?" he asked.

"Nothing really," responded Curtis, "those eggheads over at Vandelle are still banging rocks together. They're still tossing around ideas and..."

I noticed that Alula was froze stiff as a board. Her eyes lost focus, and she started to whisper.

"no. No. No. NO. NO! NO! NO! NO!" With each repetition of the word, it got louder and louder until she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Only moments later, she twitched uncontrollably for a good 15 seconds, then she fell forward, her head smacking the table with a resounding wooden thump. Everyone was shocked into silence. I slowly reached out and touched her shoulder. At my touch, she bolted upright, breathing in a panicked manner, similar to that of a fish out of water. In between gasps, she excused herself from the table and dashed off towards the back of the ship.

Once again, the table was eerily silent, only broken by the gruff voice of Curtis.

"She seemed kind of… Upset... What'd you say to her?"

"I didn't say anything," I said.

"What were you doing to her over…"

"I didn't do anything, I swear!"

He gave a sigh that said I wasn't being any fun, and told me, "You should probably go and get her."

"Wait, why me?" I asked, confused. "Why not Olga? It's probably a girl thing."

He laughed. "Now lets be honest, you would probably do a better job handling whatever girl problems she has than Olga."

I looked over at Olga to see if she was going to get up, but she was staring down at her food, smiling to herself about what Curtis had just said.

"What happened to 'Don't send an intern to do a professional's job?'" I asked.

"Yeah, what happened to that?" asked Mark.

Curtis laughed. "First off, stop trying to quote stuff back to me, cause you suck at it, both of you. And bringing things to the professionals is a common thing for interns to do. Now go be a good intern."

I rolled my eyes, excused myself from the table, and went after Alula. After opening the hatch and climbing down the ladder to the cargo area where we slept, I found her curled up in a ball in my bed, again. Her face was pressed into the satin edge of my blanket from home, and she was almost asleep, but not quite. Her whole body was still tense and her fingers massaged her temples.

"Whatever I did, I'm sorry," I said "I didn't mean to set you off."

She sat silently for so long I thought she hadn't heard me, when she whispered so quickly and so quietly that I barely heard her, "You did nothing." She looked at me and opened her mouth like she was trying to say something, but nothing came out. She tried again. "Needles," she managed, and then she broke down again.

"Wha?" I was absolutely lost, and then what she said hit me. "Oh. This has nothing to do with the space food being bad, does it?"

She managed to shake her head no.

"Alright, do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

She hesitated a second, but shook her head.

I figured she needed a little bit of time alone. "I'll let you rest then," I decided. I got up, but thought about it again. "Do you want me to stay?" I asked, softer than I'd meant to. But when I turned to her for a response, I only saw her back, she had rolled over and was now facing the wall. She probably hadn't heard me. Maybe that's for the best, I thought, and headed for the ladder.

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Carter is literally bæ.


	3. Chapter 3

Hi readers!

No, you're not getting an early update because I got to the number of comments I wanted. You're getting an early update because I'm feeling generous. You're welcome. Now vamoose, read! And as always, ENJOY!

-8tickles

P.S Just a side note, go check out my friend Alloutassaulthorizon's poetry, he's amazing! He's also the one I'm writing this very story with, so be nice to him and leave him a present, too! Aka, a comment, please. Remember kids, always say your pleases and thank you's, it'll get you far in life. It's certainly gotten me a long way. So, as to not contradict myself, please leave a comment, and thank you so much for reading!

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(Alula's POV)

I wasn't sure how long I was asleep. I wasn't sure if I ever did fall asleep, but I was seeing the same nightmares either way. I should have told him. I knew I should have told him. If not him, someone. Something they said, everything just started coming back to me, like the floodgates had opened up. Vandelle. I could hardly stand to even think the name. I wanted to forget about the needles, the drills, the things they had done to me all over again. Instead, as my memories surged back, I was forced to relive them in more vivid detail than before, and all at once. I should have told him. Consequentially, every shadow in the room turned into ominous figures moving closer, the hum of the ship's generator turned into electric drills and pained moaning, and every breath I took brought me one step closer to my last.

I rubbed my wrist involuntarily at the thought. Then I remembered the chip. The one that let me freeze Carter. I traced the scar from when it was implanted down from my wrist to almost halfway down my forearm. Then I noticed an identical scar on my other forearm. Another chip. How many of these were there in me?

I found another scar on my calf. One on the side of my rib cage. That was four already and I still couldn't see most of me. I got up. I was about used to the gravity by now, but the ladder was still difficult for me. I walked through where we had eaten dinner and stepped into the bathroom. In the mirror I noticed a similar scar under my eye.

I needed to know what these chips did. Were they dangerous? Should I be trying to get them out of me? The one that let me freeze Carter seemed like it was working okay. How did I do that? How did these chips work? I was on a ship full of scientists, I was sure someone could tell me.

I found Fitch and Carter in the lab. They looked like they weren't doing much of anything important, just cleaning some stuff up. "Guys," I shouted down to them, "Do you have anything that could scan me?"

"Pardon?" Carter looked at me as if I'd just asked him to slap me across the face. "Are you feeling okay?"

"That's not it, I'm feeling fine it's just…" as badly as I wanted to, I couldn't find the words to explain everything that I was dealing with or what I was looking for. I decided that if it was a problem, the scan would show it, and I wouldn't need to say anything. "I need you guys to scan me. There's something I need to see."

"We were planning to scan you tomorrow," said Fitch. "But we could be ready in a little while, give us a few minutes."

I decided that was good enough, but Carter was still beyond confused.

"Why does she want us to scan her?" He asked incredulously.

Fitch just facepalmed. "We need to run a diagnostic on her before we can say we've pulled this off. Don't worry about it, boy. Just get the scanner up and running."

"Ye..Yes sir." He spluttered.

Fitch continued grumbling to himself. "Wish Olga had waited longer publishing those results… doesn't tell me anything anymore…"

Carter stumbled around the lab pressing buttons, turning knobs, and knocking over beakers of solute which he had to make several dives to catch. I watched, thoroughly amused. After several more minutes of fumbling and bumbling around, the whole lab was lit up brighter than an LED christmas tree. Fitch gave me a blue plastic dress to put on that hung like a skirt from my shoulders, and told me it wouldn't interfere with the scan. When I came out from the heavily obstructed corner of the lab I'd felt most comfortable changing in, Carter told Fitch everything was ready to go, then turned to me.

"I don't really know what this is about, but I hope we find...whatever it is you think is gonna be there." With that, he snapped his goggles from his forehead onto his eyes and marched in the other direction towards a computer.

Fitch laid me down on a white table. "You're going to have to stay as still as possible," he told me, "The scanner can cause serious damage to you if you jerk around too much. Do you think you're going to need to be restrained?"

"I think I'll be okay," I decided.

"Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," I told him. He gave Carter a signal and I could immediately hear a very high pitched sound that I knew would quickly become annoying. I felt myself being lifted a few inches off of the table, and a green energy field appeared at the far side and began moving in my direction.I felt a slight burning pain in my feet the instant it came into contact with them.

Fitch walked over to the computer that Carter was sitting at. "I've got it from here," he said, and Fitch took Carter's place behind the screen. The burning in my feet was slowly getting more intense.

Carter came over and sat by the table. "Fitch tells me when you volunteered, you weren't very cooperative with the whole scanning thing," he told me. "So they took a little bit of blood and figured out where all your cells are supposed to be, what they're supposed to be doing… And this scanner takes where all of your cells actually are and what they're actually doing and records them so we can compare and make sure there's nothing wrong with you." He seemed a little bit more confident when he was talking about that stuff. I tried to smile to him, but I winced instead as the energy field migrated further up my legs and the burning pain became more intense.

The pain started to feel familiar, and I got the sense that I'd done this before. I'd definitely been scanned before when I was at Vandelle. The green energy field had hardly reached my knees, but it was coming back to me just how much it was going to hurt when it got to my torso.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" asked Carter.

"It does," I groaned. He offered me his hand, and I took it. My face tightened and I squeezed his hand as the energy field reached my thighs.

"You're sure you don't need to be restrained?" he asked. "It's not too late, I could…"

"No," I interrupted, "I got it. Just keep talking."

"Ok, what do you want me to say?"

"Keep talking about how stuff works," I told him. It was the only thing I'd actually heard him talk about and not be so awkward.

"Uh… the more of your cells that are in the way of the scanner field, the more it's going to hurt, because…"

"No, anything else but the scanner."

The field was almost past my thighs and Carter let go of my hand to avoid his hand getting caught in it.

"Alright… the ship?"

"Sure, just keep talking."

"Alright… This thing used to be military, but Curtis bought it and converted it, made it a little more cozy. It's got four main thrusters at the back, all mass drivers, and four small thrusters in the front. Main thrusters work two ways and have 60 degrees of thrust vectoring, don't use the front ones much except for moving up and down. I think it was a great design, eliminates most of the micromanaging thrusters and saves fuel. Hydrogen scoop on the bottom of the ship, we'll have power as long as there's hydrogen."

I felt an excruciating pain as the field came into contact with my torso. "Okay," I managed. "What else? Keep talking." I didn't actually understand a word he was saying.

"Alright. Well, there's the shields. High powered magnetic field. It protects from radiation and small, fast moving space rocks we can't really detect or avoid."

"Space rocks space rocks space rocks." I murmured.

"You know all it takes is one little crack in the hull and all of our eyeballs get sucked out."

"Space rocks." I said agreeably.

There was silence after that, and the field cleared my lungs. "Keep babbling...PLEASE." I begged, remembering the pain I would be in when the field reached my head.

"Other stuff… Um…"

"Just say SOMETHING!" I was almost to the point of tears from feeling of the field creeping up my neck.

"Uhh...You're pretty!" He blurted out before realizing what he said and turning as red as a tomato.

This statement made me perk up a little bit and listen more carefully to what he was saying.

"You think I'm...pretty?"

"Um no!...I mean yea...kinda I guess you're definitely not ugly, not that I ever said you were ugly, but did the word pretty really come out of my mouth? That word is usually reserved for brand new sparkling ships. or...or..or a perfect plate of food! But then again, not to say that you aren't pretty I mean, my god, you practically are perfect, any guy in his right mind would date you, but I'm not really in my right mind, considering I'm floating in a ship in the middle of space talking to a space girl with pink hair who wanted to be scanned for seemingly no particular reason but-"

His embarrassing speech was interrupted by a high-pitched warning squeal from the scanner. It had found something.

"What the…?" Fitch stared at the screen in confusion, and Carter went over to take a look.

"Uhhh...Alula? Did you know about...whatever those are?" Carter pointed at the screen. I let my head loll to one side and gave the screen a long stare.

"Go wake up Olga," Fitch told Carter. "She needs to see this."

Carter dashed off and Fitch turned to me, holding a glass tablet. "Well Alula, the diagnostic scan is finished and I'm not really sure what I'm looking at right now. There's these tiny little things in your body, all about two centimeters in height and less than three-fourths of a millimeter in width. They're organic, but they didn't fit the cell map we'd been able to make using your blood. In fact, they don't seem to have your DNA in them at all. From what I can see, there's almost two dozen of them all over your body. Do you have any idea what these are?"

I shook my head. It was difficult, even though the scan was over, my entire body felt like my funny bone after it gets hit. Carter came back dragging Olga by the hand, and even if I hadn't heard Fitch tell Carter to wake her up I would have easily been able to tell she had been asleep.

Fitch gave her the tablet and explained what had happened.

Olga was shocked. "The hell? Are you sure you…"

She was cut off as Curtis roared over the loudspeaker. "Everyone to the cockpit!" he shouted. "Now!"

* * *

To say I can't even right now would be an understatement. Dahhhh my brain! Right now it's like...*BOOM*


	4. Chapter 4

Wheyey first chapter update in forever! Please comment it means a lot, and as always, ENJOY!

-8tickles

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(Carter's POV)

This couldn't be good. I helped Alula to the cockpit, with Fitch and Olga following me.

"Get inside," demanded Curtis, and he shut the airlock as soon as we'd cleared the door.

"What's going on?" asked Fitch.

"See that ship?" Curtis asked, pointing to a little white speck in the distance. "There's three more just like it, I've got them on the monitors, and they're all around us. They're planning something."

"You're sure you're not being being paranoid again?"

"They're in a perfect tetrahedral and we're exactly in the middle," Curtis assured him. "I was in the navy for years, I know this stuff when I see it."

"Well what do you want to do about it?"

"I'm calculating a subspace jump right now, brought you all here in case things get ugly."

"Why here?" asked Alula.

"More shield strength and armor around the cockpit," I answered.

Curtis chuckled. "Actually there really isn't, it's because if there's a hull breach and there's people in parts of the ship that aren't sealed off by airlocks, everyone in that part of the ship dies. This is the smallest airlocked segment of the ship, so safety."

"But what happens if there's a hull breach in here?" I asked.

"What happens if there's a hull breach and you're not in here?" he countered.

"Well, I guess..."

"That's right, you'd be drifting helplessly in space because no one can fly the ship unless you're in the cockpit, which you wouldn't be able to get into because there'd be no air in here."

"So to answer my question, we're all here so that if there's a hull breach, we all die at once."

"More or less, yeah."

"Well," I said, "that's comforting."

"Wait," said Fitch, "where'd they all go?"

I looked at the screens, they'd all vanished. Curtis took a look and started running around the cockpit, flipping switches tapping screens and checking readouts.

"This is not good," he kept muttering. "Carter, take my chair, you're the only one on this ship that might have decent eyesight and the competence to work a gun. No offense Alula."

"Uh, offense taken!" she said.

"Would you rather keep them off of us Alula?" he asked.

"Fine..."

"Wait, what?" I was shocked. "You want me to…"

"Yes Carter, you got the top turret," he said. "Red button on the left arm for the turret camera, joystick on the right for aiming and firing. Trigger is for the laser, button on the side is the coilgun."

"What do I shoot at?" I asked, going to sit down in the chair. Mark was already in his chair looking at the turret's scope view.

"They've got shields," he said. "Plasma absorbs all light so you won't be able to see them, they'll be the darkest spot in space. Diverting power to plasma shield containment."

A massive metal plate began to close over the glass in the cockpit.

"If you hit these guys enough with the coilgun, you might be able to get them to start bleeding plasma. They start bleeding plasma, you can burn a hole straight through them with the laser."

I sat down and brought up the turret scope. "Are you sure we shouldn't wait for them to do something so that we know they're…"

The ship rocked to the side and the sounds of a series of impacts followed by metal being strained could be heard from somewhere further back in the ship. "Yes Carter, they're bad guys, start shooting!"

I held my finger down on the coilgun button, aiming for the nearest invisible ship. I wasn't sure if I was hitting anything, but I kept shooting. The ship took another jump to the side, and I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a little bit of distortion. I aimed for it. My shells began exploding against something, and a trail of plasma appeared behind them. I could faintly see a grey silhouette behind the plasma.

"I think I got one bleeding!" I said.

"Keep shooting then!" said Curtis. "We've gotta…"

Curtis was interrupted by another jolt of the ship, this time the lights flickered.

"Not good…" he mumbled.

"There's something under us!" shouted Mark. "It's not cloaked, but it's shields aren't going down. It's a gunship!"

I continued shooting at the ship that had begun bleeding, which was coming around for a pass on us. All of a sudden the gun stopped shooting. That probably wasn't good.

"Subspace calculations are only at 62%," groaned Curtis, "I gotta get us moving and recalibrate."

I could make out the entire grey ship. Just a little closer… I pulled the trigger and instantly the grey ship was separated in two unequal halves by a bright green beam, glowing orange where it had been split. It looked like I'd grazed the cockpit and it had depressurized.

"I got one!" I shouted.

"Nice shot!" Mark shouted back.

"I need my chair back," Curtis told me. I got up quickly and went to go stand at the back of the cockpit. "Olga do you think you could help me manually calculate the jump? We can do that faster than the computer will be able to."

"I'll try," she said, and made her way over to Curtis and took a look at the monitors.

We began moving. The ship was hit again, this time the lights went out for a few seconds before red emergency lights kicked in.

"Shields are down!" shouted Mark. "They're lowering theirs and trying to…"

"We don't need a commentary," interrupted Curtis.

"But…"

"Quiet, please," Olga urged. She continued tapping away at screens. "Almost… There. Keep our velocity constant and that should…"

She was cut off by the jolt of a large impact below us.

"What was that?" she asked.

"The gunship, it's docking!" shouted Mark. "They're trying to board!"

Curtis slammed his fist against a monitor. "Scrape them off! Energy weapons only, I'm taking control of the airlock. Fire when I tell you!" Curtis hit a few buttons on his chair. "Now!" he shouted. I watched on Mark's screen as the tube that connected the boarding ship to ours was severed cleanly, leaving very little of the connecting tube attached to our ship. They were hard to make out, but I saw a few bodies floating out of the tube as it began to separate from our ship, and noticed the glint of metal weapons against the blackness of space. Curtis threw a small sort of lever forward on the left side of his chair and I knew we were about to jump.

"And that," he said, "that is exactly why I'll never fly a ship without guns on it."

After a minute or two, the large metal shield over the glass began to retract, and immediately felt like we were in a completely different place, the most noticeable difference being that there were little white specs everywhere. They didn't shine like the stars did, but they did reflect light, and they seemed much closer.

"Where are we?" asked Alula.

"Kuiper belt," answered Curtis, who was digging through the cockpit looking for something.

"Why here?" she persisted.

Curtis chuckled. "Cause no one ever comes out here."

"And why is that?"

Curtis pulled out a box. "Ah, here we go. Carter, you're not such a bad shot, catch." He tossed me a small metallic object. I began to bobble it, and only then did I recognize that it was a gun. I was shocked, but I was able to keep it from hitting the floor.

"What the…" I started. "Is this thing loaded? And the safety is off!"

"Oh come on," teased Curtis. "Live a little." He handed a gun to Mark and took one for himself, then gave us oxygen masks. "You guys are following me, we're going to make sure none of them boarded. Olga, Fitch, I'll want a damage report when I get back."

I followed Mark and Curtis reluctantly as Curtis brought us through the door. The lights were still out in the lab, so Curtis showed us how to use the flashlights in our guns. We walked the platform around the lab, and I stayed closer to the wall than to the railing. When we reached the other side, Curtis checked the monitor on the door to the next room.

"Leaking gases in here, masks on," Curtis told us. We obeyed.

As soon as the door opened I heard someone wheezing. Curtis pointed the flashlight at the person making the noise, a man in a full black outfit about ten feet away, keeled over with his gun on the ground at his side. He hardly reacted. Curtis walked over and kicked the gun away.

"Get a mask for him," Curtis said, pointing somewhere to Mark. "I'll patch that leak, you keep an eye on him Carter. If he does anything funny… You know what to do."

I stood there for a minute pointing my gun at him until Mark came back with a mask. Curtis came back too shortly after.

"We should be able to filter this out when the vents are running again," he said. "Help me drag this guy to the lab."

We carried him through the door and by some miracle we were able to get him down the ladder and onto the scan table, where he was restrained. We put the mask on him and I did a basic vital scan using the reserve power, which indicated that he was still alive and would recover. We left him there and returned to the cockpit.

"Status report?" asked Curtis almost as soon as he walked through the door.

"As far as systems go we're not too bad off," Fitch stated. "Shields are on the recharge, should be another few hours, and subspace drive is on cooldown, but otherwise nothing major. We'll see what we can do about the power."

"A couple of leaks here and there, but again, nothing too major," said Olga. "The most difficult thing to fix here is the coilgun Carter jammed."

"Alright," Curtis said, even though he seemed distant. "Olga, Fitch, Mark, I want you to restore everything as soon as you can. Alula, Carter, grab oxygen masks and head to the cargo area. I want a full inventory, I don't know how long we're going to be stuck on reserve power."

"What about you Curtis?" asked Fitch.

"We've got a single boarder, but he's restrained now," Curtis said. "These guys had much better equipment than us but we held them with guns designed to break up rocks into chunks our shields can absorb. They could have obliterated us, but they didn't. They wanted something we had. Typical pirate move would be to blast a few holes in the side of a ship and depressurize the whole thing, but they didn't do that either. Whatever they wanted was delicate. And our new friend is going to tell me exactly what it is."

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Woo! Hopefully next chap will be soon :)


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